Lilac,
Perhaps we could help you if the picture was bigger and the leaves not so wilted.
But as you said you have the plant for some time and did some research on it, when bonsai nurseries sell their trees, they usually tell the buyer which species they are, age, soil and placement (full sun, partial shade and so on). Did you asked them?
If the seller doesn't provide these infos, most probably the plant is not a bonsai yet, and will take a long time to be one, if it is suitable for bonsai after all.

I have looked at the Recent Topics of last week. The majority of posts comes from people that suddenly decided they wanted to do bonsai, got a plant that hardly has got anything to do with bonsai and come asking for help AFTER the plant got in such a bad shape that recovery is unlikely. Brown junipers, wilted seedlings, Ikea ficuses dropping their leaves... people not having a clue about bonsai, or even the slightest horticultural knowledge.

Hi all! I think the perfect way here is the midway, and I'm sure we can all balance kindness and honesty in a way that would not upset anyone. If you like your Bonsai, that's all that should matter to us.

Lilac, having said all that, we can and do expect you to do your homework and at the very least upload decent photos - so we can help. You placed a photo that seems less than 50 pixels tall - you can upload easily up to 1000+ pixels. Upload a better photo and we're here to help.

Oscar wrote: Hi all! I think the perfect way here is the midway, and I'm sure we can all balance kindness and honesty in a way that would not upset anyone. If you like your Bonsai, that's all that should matter to us.

Lilac, having said all that, we can and do expect you to do your homework and at the very least upload decent photos - so we can help. You placed a photo that seems less than 50 pixels tall - you can upload easily up to 1000+ pixels. Upload a better photo and we're here to help.

Thank you for your response and also others who have made helpful suggestions. The plant was not from a bonsai nursery. It appealed to me because it was on sale and it had the shape of an over grown bonsai, probably the reason it was on sale at the end of summer. It flourished on my patio and now indoors in the cold weather it has put out new shoots and a pair of bigger leaves - perhaps result of less light from the winter sun. It has a central stump, healed at where it had been carefully cut, that definitely looks like it was trained and shaped to be bonsai. There are a couple of healthy branches out of this stump. The leaves seem to curl by nature although he new leaves look different - flat and bigger. I like the shape of the curly leaves. I plan to train the remaining branches with wires to shape them There are pletnty of sources on the internet to help. I came here hoping for some feed back. Yes, I am brand new to bonsai and learning. I am shocked at at some of the rudeness shown here and baffled at this actually.
I have attached an image that 640 by 480pixels. I don't know if that is too big or not for this site.

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Clicio wrote: Lilac,
Perhaps we could help you if the picture was bigger and the leaves not so wilted.
But as you said you have the plant for some time and did some research on it, when bonsai nurseries sell their trees, they usually tell the buyer which species they are, age, soil and placement (full sun, partial shade and so on). Did you asked them?
If the seller doesn't provide these infos, most probably the plant is not a bonsai yet, and will take a long time to be one, if it is suitable for bonsai after all.

Thank you for your response. As said before this is not from a bonsai nursery. You may be right, that it is not bonsai yet. But if it is suitable I would like to try to train it. I will also take it to my local nursery and see if they can say something about it.

Lilac, when i first joined the forum i to thought some of these people were rude. But after going through and reading various threads on this forum and actually did some research on the word BONSAI and what a bonsai really is, i come to understand were these people are coming from and that my trees are not bonsai but only trees in training. i know its a little hard to grasp at first but its unbelievable what you can learn from these members.

with that being said i recommend maybe calling the nursery you purchased this from and asking them what species it is and some care tips for this species before you put it indoors. ive mad that mistake before and killed a tree keeping it indoors.

Lilac wrote: I will also take it to my local nursery and see if they can say something about it.

Good move.
The plant has a not so thin trunk, which is good, and apart from the curling leaves, it seems alive and well (some new green leaves!).
Let us know if you get any answer from the nursery.
Maybe as crent89 has said, it should be outside at the moment, unless it is a tropical.

crent89 wrote: Lilac, when i first joined the forum i to thought some of these people were rude. But after going through and reading various threads on this forum and actually did some research on the word BONSAI and what a bonsai really is

I second that. When I first joined the forum, I had a few mallsais. I had to realize that my plants were not bonsai. But futher going into the world of bonsai, reading a ton of articles, attending to exhibitions led me to a knowledge that was enough to realize how much work and time I need to reach a certain phase or level of a tree.

Now I have a few trees in training, some are planted in the ground. I practise watering and fertilizing for two years now and I think it will be like this for a few years until I can further train my trees ( wiring, hard prunings, dead wood technique etc)

Read a lot about bonsai if you are really interested. Then you can decide if you would like to take a long path training trees into bonsai